


Juno Steel Drabbles

by gaiyok, OOB



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Multi, Other, Read the notes when prompted, Torture, au's, be warned, dark!fic, fics that may never be completed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-22
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-08-23 22:35:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8345377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaiyok/pseuds/gaiyok, https://archiveofourown.org/users/OOB/pseuds/OOB
Summary: Through collaboration with the wondrous @posnakkel on tumblr I have written a bunch of drabbles from canon and our AU's. This is where I'm gonna post them as they come. Let me know if you're interested in knowing more about any of them and I may elaborate!





	1. His Dark Materials Daemon AU

**Author's Note:**

> This daemon AU is an ongoing thing. This chapter deals with the fallout of Juno figuring out that a witchy Peter Nureyev is more dangerous than he appears. 
> 
> Peter's daemon is an arctic fox named Toska  
> Juno's daemon is a giant martian rabbit named Cinna (affectionately called Cinna-Bun by Peter)
> 
> There will be more drabbles in this universe.

Juno’s in his favourite tree when Peter finally found him. 

He had managed to convince the branches over time to weave themselves together in places forming a natural web that could support both the detective and his daemon when they needed some time to themselves. 

From the ground, all that was visible of the two were their silhouettes cast by the dying light through the dense cloud pine’s branches. 

Juno’s ‘soup pot tree’ had grown exceptionally large extremely quickly over the last few years, prompting the need for a larger and more secluded home for the pair. The old cottage out on the edge of the sandy martian wastes had not been Nureyev’s first choice, nor Juno’s, but it was the only one they could agree on. 

Juno had planted cloud pine saplings in the cracks of the solid wooden floors and convinced them to grow up to fill the gaps in the structure and provide extra support. Sturdy roots entangling under the house to form a web securing their foundation. 

Peter, for his part, had managed to coax a natural spring of water to divert it’s ground access point from a couple miles away to the courtyard of their home. Providing both them and the trees all of the water they could want without paying out the nose to have water trucked to them. The isolated them more than either could admit to preferring, but also kept their home safe from people too curious for their own good. 

Juno’s first tree though, the one they found half withered in a little clay pot in one of the most secured rooms at the Kanazawa complex, had proud place of honour in the centre of their home. Branches stretching through both floors of the house and up over the roof. 

Peter found Juno cradled in the uppermost branches with Cinna flopped on her side beside him. They were staring out at the dying sunlight over the vast desert, their eyes bruised with lack of sleep and faintly red, Toska curled on Cinna’s head licking at her ears in a vain attempt to cheer her up. 

He floated as close as he could with one hand on his cloud-pine branch, familiar carvings soft under his hand from use, and pulled himself into the organic basket to perch beside his partner. Not touching, but close enough to share his warmth. 

“Juno, about what happened —“ 

“Don’t” 

Juno’s voice was hoarse with disuse and raspy. 

“Just…sit here okay? With us.”

“Alright. I just need you to know I would never hurt you or Cinna —“

Juno interrupted again “I know. We just… need some time yeah?”

The detective allowed himself to lean slightly against the body beside him

“Just give us some time. Sit and watch the stars with us”

An arm snaked around the smaller figure’s shoulder and pulled him a bit closer. 

“Of course darling. Whatever you need”


	2. Halloween Dark!fic Daemon 'Verse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a snippet from a larger fic I'm working around it. Basically Juno and Cinna are kidnapped by people's unknown from their future!home. This chapter is very dark. Please see notes for more warnings before reading.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am warning for torture, claustrophobia and mentions of asphyxia and blood. There are also allusions to rape-like situations in a daemon context. Please be warned.

They shouldn't have been able to find the house. Peter and some witch friends of his had veiled, warded, glamoured and done god knows what else to the whole property before they had even moved in. The only ones who should have been able to find it were people Juno and Peter explicitly told the location. 

Something must have gone wrong, a loophole in the spellwork; but that didn't help them now. 

The men came in the middle of the night, crashing through the large skylight in the atrium and tearing swathes of branches off of Juno's prized cloud pine in the process. It was pure luck on their part that both Cinna and he had not been asleep in their bower at the top of the central pine, but curled up in their large bed in a fit of melancholy, missing Peter and Toska. 

The cacophony of noise woke them both instantly but it was not for long. Sharp darts hit both man and rabbit in the neck with startling precision and the sedative in the tips worked quickly. 

As Juno's world turned black he was caught aware of Cinna being restrained with wires and the violation of rough hands grabbing them both.

\---------—-------------------

Pain

The world was white hot pain and noise when Juno finally swam back to consciousness. 

Oh god it hurts

Let me go- Let her go-Let us go

No!

Don't touch! Stopstopstopstop 

Rough hands grabbing us, moving, pulling, tearing at hair-fur, sticking with needles and electric sticks

Violation  
Foreign hands on his soul

It HURTS! 

Streaming eyes lift and take in the small glass cage. Juno has just enough space to kneel upright and maybe one and a half times that on either size. There are pinprick air holes in the floor, allowing oxygen (not enough, oh god it's so hard to breathe) and who knows what else to be pumped in.

Cinna is on the other side of the thick glass her cage is larger than his, but she is still not able to sit upright or move much. 

There is a hatch on the top of her cage

A man is on the top of Cinna's cube, the hatch is open but Cinna can't move and the hands are reaching down. Juno screams and beats his palms against the dividing wall so hard he can feel the bruises already forming. 

His throat is raw, who knows how long he screamed while he was out of it, but the sound does not pierce his prison. He is trapped with his own horror, unable to warn Cinna. 

And then the hands connect. 

He can feel them pulling at his-her-their fur, he skin crawls and he thinks he may vomit but he's afraid that if he does no one will come clean it up and he'll be stuck there so he blinks and swallows hard. 

It's a disgusting feeling, the nails are rough and snag their skin, each rough fondle worse than any beat down.

Then he brings out the needle. Sharp and long and filled with clear fluid. 

Juno is screaming and his fingers are curled into claws trying desperately to rip through the bulletproof barrier. 

A firm hand on their back

The needle glints in the dim yellow light

A white hot eruption of agony in their spine and as Juno wails and curls trying vainly to reach around and somehow effect the phantom needle he realizes the true cruelty of their prison.

Cinna's screams, agonized and afraid and so so wrong oh god, echo in his little cell. Piped in through nano-speakers in the walls. 

She can't hear him, he can't comfort her, but he can hear her. Every squeal, every sob and scream and whimper. They bounce off the too-close walls and around his skull

Cold agony curls out from their spine and reaches burning fingers out through their limbs.

He loses his fight with his stomach and purges the contents of his stomach into the far corner of his cell. 

They can't move, can't escape, can't even stretch enough to try and work through the violent tremors. All they can do is curl and shake and scream and hopehopehope the darkness comes back soon

The man with the needle and the rough nails is speaking to them, but it hurts and they can't concentrate.

A frustrated huff of air and he slams the hatch shut. 

The meagre lights around them go out

Juno presses himself as tight to the barrier wall and he can while his body spasms and shakes. 

His-her fingers-claws tear at exposed flesh and the heavy smell of coppery blood rises in the too-thin air mixing with the sour-acid smell of vomit and panic-sweat into a headache inducing miasma. 

He can't breath  
It's so dark  
Oh god it hurts, it HURTS

Everything is fuzzy now, the darkness and the pain mixing disorientatingly. In a moment they are not 38 years old but 12 again, small and thin, 

In their mind, in the darkness, a sharp nailed hand lashes out again and again, striking their shoulders and head. They curl up tight but their attacker (Mommy I’m sorry! Please stop, you’re hurting us!) doesn’t stop, doesn’t listen to their screams. Red stained hands grab Cinna (curled so small, a tiny ferret) and throw— 

They woke up in darkness like this, so many years ago, Cinna was big now (‘no one will ever be able to hurt us with me like this’ — she was wrong, they were so wrong because it HURTS) and Juno was alone

They are alone now

Alone more than ever because they do not even have each other to cling to

Why are they doing this to us?

Where is Peter? We were supposed to be safe. Where is Toska?

They want Peter and Toska

It hurts

Why? 

The darkness comes and it is a relief


	3. Fluffy Daemon AU: Pre-Living Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the first ever fic I wrote for the daemon AU. The premise is basically that Toska and Peter occasionally sneak into Juno and Cinna's apartment to leave them gifts before they really got to know them. -Gaiyok

The first time they caught Toska sneaking into their apartment was by no means the first time he had actually snuck in. 

It was a complete fluke, or at least that's what Toska and Nureyev claim each time the story is told, that Juno and Cinna were awake at 4:30am on a Saturday when they would usually be asleep. 

Of course Cinna and Juno will say that weeks of waking up covered in glittering jewels and soft fabrics on random mornings, when they as definitely had gone to sleep curled together in their nest-bed with only their comforter, would make anyone paranoid and prone to sleepless nights. 

But either way, Toska was caught red-pawed on an early Saturday morning with a glittering platinum and diamond chain coiled in one of the pouches strapped to his side. The other held a pair of cashmere socks and Plutonian leather gloves, able to withstand absolute zero temperatures and still keep the wearers hands warm.

He had wriggled through the central air vent, soundlessly pushing the loosened vent cover out of the way before dropping on whisper soft paws to the bedroom floor. 

This was all fairly usual.

The light that suddenly flooded the room and the large paw that snatched him up by the tail were not, in any way, usual however and he couldn’t help but let out a shocked yelp-scream and barely stopped himself from sinking dagger sharp teeth into the restraining limb. 

“What the hell… Toska?!”

Juno’s voice was blurry at the edges with lack of sleep, but he motioned at Cinna to put the startled fox back down. The sleepy detective moved slowly from the light switch by the door and perched on the edge of their bed, staring down at their vulpine intruder muzzily. 

Toska sat down gratefully once released and gently worried at the base of his tail for a second before turning back to the puzzled PI and his gigantic rabbit daemon. 

Cinna looked more unimpressed than Toska had ever seen her, quite a feat as she always had a faint impression of not-quite-approval whenever he and Peter were around. 

“What do you think you’re doing Toska?” Her husky contralto fairly dripped with derision. “Do you have any idea how much sleep Juno’s lost because he was worrying about your stupid pranks? I assume the last few weeks have all been you and Nureyev. Don’t say anything, it’s obvious.”

Stepping down off of the round indented nest-bed she and Juno slept in, Cinna hopped over to the wardrobe and stretched up pull a box off of the top. She hop-stepped over to a chagrinned Toska and dropped the box in front of him.

“Put your trinkets in there. We’ll sort through them in the morning”

Turning her back decisively she moved towards Juno and the bed, using a gentle forepaw to nudge him back into the centre of the mattress and curling her massive bulk around him. 

Toska pulled their gifts quietly from his pouches and placed them into the box. It was full of the gifts they had left the pair over the last 6 weeks, a fortune in jewelry, cosmetics, clothing and weaponry. Although he was happy to note that a couple pieces were not present and, he hoped, had been accepted and were now seeing regular use. 

He nudged the lid onto the box and scuttled back into the vent. As he turned to make his escape back to Peter in the car outside he was stopped by Cinna.

“If you two fools really want to give us gifts, We need a new blanket; Juno gets too cold even with me here in the winter. And we could always do with food in the fridge once in a while. If you want to actually get us something we can use instead of useless pretty junk” 

There was a rustling as Cinna curled back into the bed, the conversation obviously finished. 

Toska slunk back to Peter in record time, already planning next weeks gifts of luxuriously soft and warm blankets and furnishings to be delivered when the prickly pair was out, along with setting up some sort of grocery service. Peter would know who to call.


	4. Tiny Fluff Dialogue

“Hey Mistah Steel?”

“Hm?”

“Mistah Steeeel”

“God, okay. What Rita?”

“Do you think you and Mistah Glass are gonna get married one day?”

“What the- where the hell is this coming from?! And you know he’s not actually called Rex Glass right?”

“Well yeah, but you said his real name is a sec-ret.”

“I think we’re pretty safe here in the office Rita”

“Okay, so are you and Mistah Nureyev gonna get married do you think?”

“I - I don’t know Rita! I’m 39 years old, I think I’m probably too old to get married. And besides, I’m pretty sure you both have to be able to use your real names on the wedding certificate to get married”

“But you’ve thought of it?”

“It’s … come up. Why the sudden interest?”

“Well I mean he loves you a whole lot don’t he?”

“That’s what he says”

“And you love him a whole lot too”

“Sure”

“…”

“Rita?”

“Do you think someone will ever love me like that Mistah Steel?”

“Oh. Rita, of course someone will”

“Not for nothin’ but it gets kinda lonely sometimes, you and Mistah Nureyev goin’ out on all sorts of adventures and I’m all by my lonesome.”

“Rita-”

“And if you get married maybe you won’t need me anymore and what’ll I do?!-”

“Rita-”

“ I don’t wanna leave you Mistah Steel! Other than Franny you’re the best friend I got and-”

“RITA!”

“… yes Mistah Steel?”

“I’m not gonna leave you dummy. Even if, on the extremely off chance, Nureyev and I tie the knot I would never leave you behind. You’re my best friend too. I know I don’t say it much.”

“Well gosh Mistah Steel-”

“And WHEN you find someone who deserves to love you like you deserve, Nureyev and I will still be here for you”

“… thanks Mistah Steel”

“Don’t mention it. Seriously.”

“I love you boss”

“… yeah whatever. Iloveyoutoo”


	5. Daemon AU Rescue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This actually fits in after the events of chapter two and before the events of chapter one.

Peter was so looking forward to getting back home.

Home

A concept he was very familiar with in theory but had exceptionally little actual practical experience with.

He had had a home with Mags once upon a time, when all of Brahma had been a home worth fighting for.

Worth killing for

Until everything had ended in blood and shattered cloud pine saplings. A young man fleeing into the night with a newly settled Daemon; smearing white fur with blood and leaving behind a name whispered in shadows and children’s stories.

After he and Toska had fled Brahma there were no more homes for them. No safe place worth fighting or dying for. Just the next Mark. And the next and the next and so on and so forth.

Until Mars and Hyperion City

Until Juno Steel and Cinna

After that there were still the marks, still the danger and the search for what had been stolen from him so long ago.

But there was also Juno and Cinna, gifts stolen or purchased with them in mind, carefully planned encounters that became madcap adventures.

There was home.

At first a small grubby apartment that housed the two most important creatures in the universe for them. Then, later, there was a house deep in the Martian desert on a cliff. Warded and hidden and wrapped in cloud pines grown by the most amazing person Nureyev knew.

A house decorated by both of them. A place they both came back to when work was done.

Nureyev felt himself relax as they passed through the wards on the property. Soon he would be back with Juno, Cinna and Toska. They could take time for themselves and be homebodies for a while, perhaps he would be able to convince Juno to try teaching him how to convince the cloud pines to grown again.

He opened the door with a smile ready to call out his arrival to his small family (his FAMILY), when he paused.

Something was wrong.

From the entryway he could see into the atrium at the centre of the house. Where there should have been a gently bubbling fountain wrapped around the massive trunk of Juno’s first “soup-pot tree”, all Nureyev could see was broken glass and shattered branches. One side of the fountain was broken and water was leaking steadily out onto the floor.

He took a single unsteady step into the house. Then another.  
And another.

The house was quiet except for the patter of the water and the susurrus of the wind through the broken glass and branches.

Debris crunched under his feet as he strained for any sound of life. He strode purposefully across the atrium and to the bedroom.

There was a pool of blood smeared across the entrance of the bedroom. A large branch was broken across the massive empty bed, blackened marks on the trunk indicating multiple shots fired at the same spot.

A whimper sounded faintly from underneath the broken branch, a sound both heartbreaking and all too familiar.

Nureyev ran forward and heaved the debris away from the bed and floor, revealing the large white fox curled underneath.

“Toska!”

A sharp spear of relief pierced through their muffled bond, neither of them could tell who it was from.

Toska staggered to his paws and threw himself into Nureyev’s out stretched arms. His chest heaved with panicked emotion and his words came quickly and were slurred with tears.

“Peter they took Juno and Cinna! I came early like we talked about and I was just going to wake them up when these men broke through the skylight! I wanted to fight them, I swear I did! But Cinna saw me and told me to hide and I did! There were so many of them and they shot Juno and Cinna with some sort of drug and they took them! Those men touched Cinna and I froze! I froze and they took them! Oh god they took them away while I hid!”

Toska shivered and shook in Nureyev’s arms, his words coming faster and faster as he started to hyperventilate. Peter felt his heartbeat speed up to match Toska’s, his throat tightening in panic.

He tightened his grip on his daemon and pushed his tear streaked face into the thick fur at his ruff. His teeth were bared in a rictus facsimile of a grin, longing to sink into the flesh of the men who stole his small family.

“We’ll get them back Toska, I swear we’ll get them back”

————————————-

In the end it took over a week for Peter and Toska to track, bribe, and torture their way to the location where Juno and Cinna were being held.

They lost another six hours to necessary equipment preparation and getting the absolute minimum amount of rest for them to be functional for the rescue.

It was dark when they drove up to the building where their partners were being held.The building was located deep in the slums of Oldtown, and closer observation led Peter to a sign that indicated it had once been a munitions factory.

He remembered Juno mentioning a munitions factory once, after a particularly bad nightmare.

He remembered him muttering about machinery and dark drops, endless places to get lost in.

Endless places to hide in.

They split up once the car was hidden. Peter levered Toska through a small window, before slipping through the gap in a broken emergency door.

Finding Juno and Cinna was almost stupidly easy once they were inside, especially compared to the gauntlet they had had to go through to find the damn place. A large lit area had been erected towards the back of the building, surrounded by several armed guards and figures in white lab coats. There was a smaller walled off section in the middle of the circle of machines and lights, Peter had a feeling that would be where he would find Juno.

He felt Toska’s flare of recognition mirror his own and they started quietly towards their goal. Toska slunk across the beams and machinery with his belly pressed close to the ground while Peter slipped from shadow to shadow on the ground. Neither lost sight of the box for a second.

Toska was the one who made the first move. Carefully nosing one of his side pouches open he grabbed a small round object daintily in his teeth and used his paws to twist it before letting the object drop into the centre of the clustered people.

The ‘thud’ of the object hitting the floor drew people near, just in time for it to weaponize and eject it’s load of paralyzing nerve gas. Almost everyone hit the floor chocking and twitching and their bodies began to betray them. The noise summoned the remaining guards who ran into the disappearing cloud of gas only to fall themselves.

Peter emerged from the shadows like a nightmare of sharp teeth and flashing steel. The first two scientists to try and run got knives to the back. The third raised his hands and tried to beg for his life through snot and tears.

“Please, oh god, please I have a family, please please I’ll do whatever you want. I’ve-I’ve got kids and a husband, please please ple-”

Nureyev cut him off with an impatient swipe of his hand. The man on the floor stopped his begging but continued to snivel on the floor, cringing away when Toska leapt softly to the floor and stalked towards them.

“They’re in the big box” Toska’s voice shook with anger “something’s weird about the soundproofing on it but I can hear one of them crying”

Pete’s blood ran cold

He reached down and yanked the man to his feet by his collar.

“Let them out”

His voice was like ice. Clear and cold.

The worm in his grasp cringed away against his grip and reached wildly at his waist for an old fashioned metal key. He held it out of Peter in shaking hands but Peter threw him back with disgust and motioned towards the large rectangular box.

“Open it. And pray that they are alright”

Toska jumped up onto one of the consoles and began flicking through pages on the screen with his paw.

“It looks like they were experimenting on them. Trying to see if they could artificially break the bond without a guillotine or a scalpel. I think they’ve been injecting them with small amounts of manganese-titanium to see if the bond will break by itself but keep both of them alive”

There was horror in his voice. If a daemon could be physically sick he had no doubt Toska would have been. As it was Peter wanted to retch at the thought of what Juno and Cinna had endured.

Were enduring

Who knew what the effects of manganese-titanium injections could be?

The man had unlocked the padlock at the bottom of one of the side walls of the box. It slid upwards on a roller to expose two clear glass cages. Raised on a concrete base with a ladder up one side, the larger pen held a shivering Cinna. The giant rabbit was hunched painfully in the cube that only just fit her, shivering and twitching with bloody foam at her mouth and eyes. Juno’s cage was almost worse.

His detective was curled on his side with his neck pressed against one wall while his curled legs twitched spasmodically. His hands were black with bruises and as Peter walked closer he could see that he was missing most of his nails; it appeared he had tried to claw at the wall separating Cinna and him and torn them off in the grooves he had dug in the glass. There was a pool of vomit in one corner, and blood was caked under his eyes and on his chin.

Thankfully he appeared to be unconscious

A quick investigation of the cells found the locks. Rifling through one of the dead scientists’ pockets brought a key and soon Peter was disengaging the side walls to each cell.

He managed to catch Juno before his head hit the ground, his body slithering limply from the cage when the wall he was braced against was removed.

He winced at the soft 'thud’ as Cinna’s large body did the same.

Gently he stroked the side of Juno’s face with the back of one hand, moving him slowly to rest against Cinna’s side. Their breathing deepening and synchronizing as they curled together. After a few minutes Juno’s eyes fluttered open, hazily taking stock of his situation. He let out a soft sob as he realized he was able to touch Cinna again, curling damaged fingers in soft matted fur. He turned his swollen eyes to Peter, gaze full of relief and love and the lingering traces of fear.

“It took you long enough” his voice was raspy. Like had been gargling glass shards.

Or screaming for hours

Peter shot him a brittle grin and gently stroked across Juno’s cheek as Cinna began to stir awake.

“I’ll endeavour to be faster to the rescue if you promise to never make me worry like this again. You beautiful vexing creature”

Each word was a relief. The familiar banter a balm on frayed nerves.

He felt Toska cringe closer on his belly, ears flat, until he was close enough to gently lick and nuzzle Cinna’s face.

“I’m sorry” his voice was small “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to stop them taking you” 

A large paw slid around to knock him over

“Stupid boy” Cinna croaked “we told you to hide so you could come save us and you did. You have nothing to apologize for”

A pause

“Well, you could have been a bit quicker about it actually”

Juno huffed a small laugh

“That’s what I said!”

The reunion was broken by the groan of the forgotten security guard. He was bent over the body of one of his colleagues, obviously trying to find survivors.

Peter turned back to Juno and Cinna and stretched out an arm. Juno grasped it in shaky hands and levered himself up, Cinna slowly getting her paws beneath herself to do the same. As a group they staggered out of the enclosure until they were just behind the security guard, still distractedly searching his coworkers for vital signs.

“They’re all dead”

Peter and Toska’s voices sounded as one; laced with magic now. Cold, cruel and malicious.

Juno turned in his grasp with questioning eyes but Peter only tightened his grip and kept his gaze on the last of his partner’s torturers.

Their dual voice rang out

“You’re dead too you know” the cold iron of his belief coiling it’s way down the man’s spine “you died with them but you haven’t noticed yet. Can’t you feel the way your skin has gone cold?”

The man's skin paled dramatically as he huffed panicked breaths, trapped in place by fear

“Can’t you feel the heaviness in your lungs that no longer need air?”

The man's breaths became shorter and more infrequent, as if he was trying to breath molasses

“The lead weight of your heart that no longer beats?”

He clawed with jerky clawed hands at his chest, his eyes rolling wildly was foamy spittle collected at the sides of his mouth

“Your blood is thick in your veins now and so cold, can you feel it? You’ve been dead a long time can’t you tell?”

The weight of their magic grew with each word, as their belief became reality and the man in front of them became more corpse like by the second.

As the man twitched his last spasms of life away the two of them finished their spell with vicious relish

“You’ve been dead since you touched them, you just didn’t know it yet”

The heavy feeling of magic cleared from the air all at once, and all that was left was the corpse in front of them

Juno and Cinna’s breaths were coming shallowly, but if they were frightened by Nureyev and Toska’s display of power they did not show it.

It was slow going to the car, but once they were all in Juno and Cinna fell asleep almost instantly as Nureyev drove as fast as he could towards the private hospital he had pre-paid to be ready for them as soon as they arrived.

As dawn broke over the munitions factory and all of it’s horrors, Peter and Toska cast their eyes out to the road with their precious cargo fast asleep in the back seat.

Making plans upon plans for the future ahead.


	6. Mob 'Verse AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was actually written because of a piece of fan art OOB received in an exchange. 
> 
> The premise is fairly ordinary though: what if Juno were just slightly easier to convince? What if Nureyev had taken a difference route after Mag? 
> 
> Here's one way it could have gone

It's almost universally well-known amongst the denizens of Mars that Hyperion City had recently come under new 'management'.

Oh sure on the surface nothing much had changed. Shops still opened and restaurants shuttled people in and out of their doors. But the little things, the important things, those had changed considerably. 

The dark alleys that had once been rife with shadowy figures and gleaming knives were now clear. There were no candy-sweet smiling drug pushers hanging around the school yards and playgrounds, the prostitutes that walked the street corners seemed to disappear and the roving gangs seemed to have migrated to greener pastures almost overnight. 

Which wasn’t to say there was an absence of crime. Drugs still got sold but in designated areas free of children and the prostitutes had moved into clean buildings in which to ply their trade. The gangs though, those had indeed moved on after several bloody struggles that had crippled most of them. 

Whispers in Oldtown and in Hyperion spoke of a man called The King. 

The King had swept into Hyperion on business one day and had simply never left, deciding instead to make a new base in Hyperion City from which he managed the largest organized crime syndicate in the known galaxy. 

No one knew his name. 

People speculated. 

Stories ranging from a boy who grew up as a prince on one of the outer rim worlds and turned to crime after his planet fell into ruin, to a beggar who had killed his way up the crime ladder before eventually taking over. 

None of the stories were true. 

But they were much more interesting than the truth of it: a little boy, orphaned on a war torn outer planet, who was rescued by a man who would teach him what it meant to be a criminal with values; before betraying all he had taught. How that young man took those values and compressed them into an iron core of belief that fuelled his astronomic rise into power, drawing followers and obliterating his enemies with extreme prejudice. 

He had rules that everyone followed:  
No children. Ever.  
No animal cruelty  
Everyone got one chance.  
But once that chance was gone there would be no mercy. 

He grew a massive empire that had handholds in almost every planet worth knowing throughout the galaxy. Though it was not until a business associate asked for his help in acquiring an artifact for her research that he finally made it to Mars. Hyperion City to be exact. 

Hyperion city, where he first met Detective Juno Steel and set down roots for the first time since his world had rearranged itself under blood red light with a knife in his hand. Juno Steel who had saved his life and asked for nothing in return and so earned the King’s greatest secret. 

Juno Steel who was even now perched on the corner of his desk, eyes watching as he conversed with an assembly of his generals around a large conference table. The arms of his black jacket melded with his long black fingerless gloves, a tight black collar spanned his throat overtop a simple white sleeveless shirt tucked into high waisted black silk shorts. An opalescent skirt floated overtop the shorts and fell to the top of his high heeled shoes; while a small gold charm hung against his chest from the bottom of the collar inscribed with a crown wrapped around a knife. 

The symbol of The King. 

He looked fairly harmless, a former detective now Moll reclining while his other half did business, but having people underestimate him was one of Juno’s favourite tactics. 

Dark eyes flicked to each face around the table and he kept a hand by the blaster holstered in his jacket at all times. Two hulking forms crouched on either side of the desk flanking him. Black Martian Sewer rabbits who Juno had selected and trained himself as enforcers and bodyguards, they too were used to being underestimated and used it to their advantage. 

The stayed that way for over three hours, barely moving, until finally the meeting ended and every left the office. 

The King sprawled into his plush chair at his desk and Juno playfully pulled one of his suited legs between his own, leaning down to rest a hand on his thigh and give him a brief kiss. 

“They’re all clean so far” he reported “I swept their minds continuously while you were talking and other than one or two who need to think less about what they’re going to be having for supper and more on their jobs they are all good to go”

The King smiled and cupped the right side of Juno’s face, thumb brushing softly under his eye.

“Thank you my love but don’t overexert yourself, remember what the doctor told you.”

Juno leaned into the hand and smiled softly

“I remember”

“Good. Whatever would I do without you my dear?”

“We will never know”


End file.
